Marking the end of a three-day conference on popular resistance, a demonstration was held in the West Bank village of Budrus, on 18.07.2011. When protesters reached one of the gates of the separation Wall, they were attacked by Israeli soldiers who fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters directly at them. The Israeli army also used flares above trees and houses, which triggered some fires. One Israeli activist was injured by tear gas canister in his leg.

Do not speak, do not resist – Israel rules out non-violence ~ by Jonathan Cook

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: “What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation’s goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in coming days for a bill to block the work of Israeli organisations trying to protect Palestinian rights; and another draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far-right, with the power to appoint supreme court judges. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right’s ascendancy.

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a non-violent political programme – boycott – to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: “Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.”

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offence. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who – again uniquely – need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 per cent opposed.

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video “ad” that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel’s hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychiatrist’s office.

A young woman, clearly traumatised, deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink-splodges, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realise, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy’s commandos by the “terrorist” passengers aboard last year’s aid flotilla to Gaza.

Immune to reality – that the ships were trying to break Israel’s punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style – Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is “forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason”. Finally she storms out, saying: “What do you want – for [Israel] to disappear off the map?”

The video – released under the banner “Stop the provocation against Israel” – was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The aid mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let them sail.

Israel’s siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity – this one nicknamed the “flytilla”. Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the West Bank.

Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion Airport to greet arrivals. About 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing.

Echoing the hysterical sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various flotillas as “denying Israel’s right to exist” and a threat to its security.

Although Mr Netanyahu’s comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the massive overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Mr Tibi points out, leave no room for non-violent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that non-violence is essentially “a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?”

Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli right appear to understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and solidarity activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organise joint peaceful and non-violent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing it offers a justification for entrenching the occupation? By generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, does Mr Netanyahu hope he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state and destroy hopes for a Palestinian state?

Jonathan Cook is The National’s correspondent in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism

US Congress loves being lied to about the Israel-Palestine conflict…

when the truth is so easy to discover

Here in the UK we have so many craven politicians paying homage to the likes of Rupert Murdoch and playing stooge to the pro-Israel lobby that there's little time to take much interest in US politics. So I apologise to American friends for briefly intruding on their grief; but somebody has sent me a copy of a letter from a US congresswoman to one of her constituents.

It says:

As the only democracy in the region, I believe that the United States has a special relationship with Israel… During my time in the House of Representatives, I will support our funding our ally and help to forward Israel's efforts to keep their citizens safe, which currently stands at 2.8 billion dollars in general foreign aid, and another 280 million dollars for a missile defence system…

Our foreign aid to Palestine is intended to create a virtuous cycle of stability and prosperity in the West Bank that inclines Palestinians towards peaceful coexistence with Israel and prepares them for self-governance. Continued failure to reach a two-state solution, combined with lack of consensus on any of the alternatives, may also mean that the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza could continue indefinitely. In addition, with the West Bank and Gaza currently controlled by Hamas, an entity listed as a terrorist organization by US State Department and many other world governments, this may ultimately impact future aid our nation will provide.

Most recently, I became a co-sponsor of House Resolution 268, which reaffirms our support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states. This resolution also opposition to a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, as well as outlined consequences for Palestinian efforts to circumvent direct negotiations.[sic] This bill passed in the House on 7 July 2011 by a vote of 407 – 6…

Resolution 268 actually states that "Palestinian efforts to gain recognition of a state outside direct negotiations demonstrates absence of a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations". It threatens withholding US foreign aid to the Palestinian National Authority if it presses ahead with an application for statehood in the United Nations in September. It also calls for the Palestinian unity government to "publicly and formally forswear terrorism, accept Israel's right to exist, and reaffirm previous agreements made with the government of Israel".

Senator Ben Cardin, who initiated the resolution, announced: "The Senate has delivered a clear message to the international community that United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state at this time does not further the peace process."

Israel is the only democracy in the region? The West Bank and Gaza are controlled by Hamas? An application to the UN for Palestinian statehood is "circumventing" the peace process? Representative Colleen Hanabusa's letter shows that she is poorly briefed. There is nothing on her website to suggest that she has a special interest in foreign affairs, let alone the Middle East. So why does this nice lady lawmaker from Hawaii suddenly find herself co-sponsoring a resolution that's designed to scupper the hopes for freedom of another people halfway round the world, who have suffered betrayal and brutal military occupation for 63 years?

Disinformation is a recurring feature of US foreign policy discourse, and I'm reminded of the twisted comments of Alejandro Wolff, US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, when he faced journalists' questions at the Security Council on that infamous day, 3 January 2009, when Israel's tanks rolled into Gaza to deal further death and destruction to a community that had already been air-blitzed for eight days and suffered siege and blockade for nearly 30 months before that.

Reporter: Mr Ambassador, you made no mention, sir, of any Israeli violation of those agreements that you've referred to, particularly in the opening of the crossings. And then there is a major development today, which is Israel's land attack and that's threatening to kill hundreds of civilians. Doesn't this deserve some request for Israel … to stop its ground military attacks, sir?

Ambassador Wolff: Well, again, we're not going to equate the actions of Israel, a member state of the United Nations, with the actions of the terrorist group Hamas. There is no equivalence there. This council has spoken on many times about the concerns we had about Hamas's military attacks on Israel. The charter of this organization [the UN] respects the right of every member state to exercise its self-defence, and Israel's self-defence is not negotiable… The plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza is directly attributable to Hamas.

Reporter: But Hamas represents the people, because they voted, over 70 per cent of them, for Hamas in the last election.

Ambassador Wolff: Hamas usurped the legitimate authority of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

Even US ambassadors should know that Hamas was and still is the legitimate authority. Hamas was democratically elected in 2006 in a contest judged by international observers to be clean. The result didn't suit Israel or its protector, the USA, so, together with the UK and the EU, they set about trashing Palestine's embryonic democracy. Losers Fatah, a corrupt faction rejected by the people for that reason, was recruited and funded to do the dirty work, for which they were well suited. As John Pilger has pointed out, when Hamas foiled a CIA-inspired coup in 2007 the event was reported in the Western media as "Hamas's seizure of power".

Hamas simply took the action necessary to establish its democratic authority against Fatah's US-funded militia. This angered the US and Israel even more.

For Mrs Hanabusa's information, thanks to America's meddling Fatah controls the West Bank but has no democratic legitimacy while Hamas is holed up in Gaza. And Israel is far from being the full-blown Western-style democracy that many think.

"No equivalence" between Israel and "terrorist" Hamas?

The US uses a perfectly good form of words to brand, outlaw and crush any organization, individual or country it doesn't like. Under Executive Order 13224 ("Blocking Property and prohibiting Transactions with Persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support Terrorism"), Section 3, the term "terrorism" means an activity that:

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and

(ii) appears to be intended

(a) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(b) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping or hostage-taking.

The order was signed on 23 September 2001 by George W. Bush. Its definition of terrorism fits the conduct of the United States and its bosom-buddy Israel like a glove, the irony of which seems totally lost on Congress.

Let us also look at Netanyahu's definition since he runs Israel's current government. His book Terrorism: How the West Can Win defines terror as the "deliberate and systematic murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends".

In an interview with Jennifer Byrne in February 2002, he said: "Terrorism is defined by one thing and one thing alone, the nature of the act. It is the deliberate systematic assault on civilians that defines terrorism."

It's like he's signing his own arrest warrant.

If terror is unjustifiable, then it is unjustifiable across the board. The Palestinians had no history of violence until their lands were threatened and then partitioned and overrun by a brutal intruder whose greed is never satisfied. Demands for Palestinians to cease their terror campaign (if you buy the idea that resistance equals terror) must be linked to demands for Israel to do the same.

As for the resistance movement Hamas, its charter is objectionable and the leadership are foolish not to have rewritten it in tune with modern diplomacy. Nevertheless the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, within days of being elected, offered long-term peace if Israel recognized Palestine as an independent state on 1967 borders. Previously, the Palestine Liberation Organization had unwisely "recognized" Israel without any reciprocal recognition of a Palestinian state. The Oslo Accords were supposed to end the occupation and give Palestine independence. "What we've got instead are more settlements, more occupation, more roadblocks, more poverty and more repression," he said.

Omar Abdul Razek, Hamas's finance minister, when interviewed by Aljazeera in May 2006, asked: "Which Israel would you want me to recognize? Is it Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates? Israel with the occupied Golan Heights? Israel with East Jerusalem? Israel with the settlements? I challenge you to tell me where Israel's borders lie."

Interviewer: "…the 1967 borders."

Omar AbdulRazek: "Does Israel recognize the 1967 borders? Can you tell me of one Israeli government that ever voiced willingness to withdraw to the 1967 borders?"

So, the question remains: why should Hamas or any other Palestinian party renounce violence against a foreign power that violently occupies their homeland, bulldozes their homes at gunpoint, uproots their beautiful olive groves, sets up hundreds of armed checkpoints to disrupt normal life, batters down villagers' front doors in the dead of night, builds an illegal "separation" wall to annex their territory, divide families, steal their water and isolate their communities, and blockades exports and imports to cause economic ruin – and now plans to steal Gaza's offshore gas?

Palestinians too have a right to defend themselves, and their self-defence, like Israel's, is non-negotiable.

As for recognizing Israel right to exist, no Palestinian is likely to do that while under Israel's jackboot. Nor should they be expected to. It would simply serve to legitimize the occupation, which is what Israel wants above all and what Israel wants Israel must get, even if the US has to make a complete fool of itself.

The terror that stalks the Holy Land

American and Israeli politicians love quoting the number of garden-shed rockets launched from Gaza towards Sderot. But can they say how many (US-supplied) bombs, shells and rockets have been delivered by F-16s, helicopter gunships, tanks, drones and navy vessels into the tightly-packed humanity of Gaza?

In the period between the start of the second Intifada (September 2000) up to Operation Cast Lead (26 December 2008) 4,836 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in the occupied territories, including 951 children. Two hundred and thirty five of these were targeted killings (i.e. assassinations) while 2,186 were killed during targeted killings although they were not taking part in hostilities. Five hundred and eighty one Israelis, including 84 children, were killed by Palestinians in Israel.

During Operation Cast Lead (27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009) 1,396 Palestinians, including 345 children, were killed by Israelis. In Gaza itself they killed 344 children, 110 women and 117 elderly people. Only four Israelis were killed by Palestinians in this period, no children.

Since Operation Cast Lead and up to the end of May 2011 Israelis killed 197 Palestinians in the occupied territories, including 26 children. Five were targeted killings during which 65 non-participants were killed. In the same period three Israelis were killed by Palestinians in Israel, including one child.

I make that 6,429 to the Israelis and 589 to the Palestinians – a kill rate of 11 to 1. When it comes to snuffing out children Israel is even more proficient with a kill-rate of over 14 to 1.

And it's not just the dead. The Cast Lead assault on Gaza is reported to have injured and maimed some 5,450. Israel also destroyed or damaged 58,000 homes, 280 schools, 1,500 factories and water and sewage installations. And it used prohibited weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorus shells.

Assassination has been official Israeli policy since 1999. Their preferred method is the air-strike, which is often messy as demonstrated in 2002 when Israeli F-16 warplanes bombed the house of Sheikh Salah Shehadeh, the military commander of Hamas, in Gaza City killing not just him but at least 11 other Palestinians, including seven children, and wounding 120 others.

I'm told resistance "terrorists" like Hamas account for less than a thousand victims a year worldwide, while "good guy" state terrorists slaughter civilians by the hundreds of thousands – some say millions.

The long list of Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians – attacks that cannot be justified on grounds of defence or security and are so disproportionate as to constitute grave violations of human rights – puts Israel near the top of the state terrorist league. The demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank for "administrative" and planning reasons, the wholesale destruction of businesses and infrastructure, the impoverishment and displacement of Palestinians through land expropriation and closure, the abductions and imprisonments, the assassinations, and especially that 22-day blitzkrieg on the civilian population of Gaza who had nowhere to run – all this add up to mega-terrorism on the part of America's "special friend", according to their own definitions.

Negotiations? "We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero"

Finally, what is this nonsense about Palestinians lacking good faith and somehow "isolating Israel" by applying for UN recognition rather than wasting more time on fruitless negotiations? Israel obtained its statehood by accepting the borders of the UN's 1947 partition, which was agreed without even consulting the Palestinians whose land was being carved up. The Jews didn't stop to "negotiate". Well before the ink was dry Jewish terror groups had ethnically cleansed and driven off hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from their lands and villages so that the new state's already generous boundaries were immediately expanded (example, Najd now Sderot). The land-grab had started and Israel's borders have been "fluid" ever since.

Why are US lawmakers now trying to thwart the Palestinians' dream of their own independent state? No-one is demanding the 1947 borders. They are willing to accept the 1967 armistice lines recognized in numerous UN resolutions and generally accepted by the international community. Even Hamas has agreed. So what is the problem?

The problem is that the Israeli occupation should have collapsed long ago under the weight of its illegality, but Israel shows no willingness to return the stolen lands or relinquish enough control for a viable Palestinian state.

Netanyahu heads Israel's Likud party, which is the embodiment of greed, racist ambition, lawlessness and callous disregard for other people's rights. In any other country it would be banned and its leaders locked up. Yet he is welcomed like a hero in the US and given 29 standing ovations by Congress.

Likud intends to make the seizure of Jerusalem permanent and establish Israel's capital there. It will "act with vigour" to ensure Jewish sovereignty in East Jerusalem (which still officially belongs to the Palestinians as does the Old City). The illegal settlements are "the realization of Zionist values and a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel". They will be strengthened and expanded. As for the Palestinians, they can run their lives in a framework of self-rule "but not as an independent and sovereign state".

So we can see where he's coming from.

Kadima, the party of Tzipi Livni, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, is little better and has also pledged to preserve the larger settlement blocs and steal Jerusalem.

In the 1947 UN partition Jerusalem was designated an international city under independent administration to avoid all this aggravation.

Rather than force compliance with international law and UN resolutions the international community, led by the US, has let matters slide by insisting on a solution based on lopsided power negotiations in which the Palestinians are at a serious disadvantage. During this dragged-out and failed process Israel has been allowed to strengthen its occupation by establishing more and more "facts on the ground", and its violations of human rights and international law have escalated with impunity. And that is what this dirty game is all about: Israel needs more time to make its occupation permanent.

Funny how we never hear the US talking about law and justice. It's always "negotiations" or "talks", buying time for Israel.

What the situation is crying out for is justice, and it's all set down in UN resolutions, international law and humanitarian law. Once both sides are in compliance negotiations can commence – if there's anything left to negotiate.

Fr Manuel Musallam, for many years the Latin Catholic priest in Gaza, recently told members of the Irish government:

We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink. We want to be given more opportunity to reach Jerusalem. I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990.

Indeed, when I met Fr Manuel four years ago he had been effectively trapped in Gaza for nine years, unable to visit his family a few miles away in the West Bank. Had he set foot outside Gaza the Israelis would not have allowed him back in to rejoin his flock. So, he stayed put until he retired. This is just a tiny part of the ugly reality that America supports and applauds.

If Mrs Hanabusa and the rest of Congress were in the Palestinians' shoes would they bog themselves down yet again in discredited negotiations with a gun to their heads?

Or would they apply to the UN for long overdue enforcement of its resolutions and international law?

There is only one thing worse than being lied to, Congress. And that's acting on a lie.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Thousands of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals walk together for an independent Palestinian state. A small group of right wing extremist tried unsuccessfully to disrupt the march.The event was co-organized by Israeli solidarity and Palestinian groups, making it the first Jewish-Arab even event in 20 years.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Palestinian women at the forefront of the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh.

For weeks, if not months, I wanted to go back to the Nabi Saleh weekly demonstration. But a journey to Nabi Saleh is a whole exhausting mission and the demonstration is known to be very long. Every Friday, the village comes under siege. The Israeli army entirely closes down the village from morning to night. Demonstrators need to arrive the day before, or very early in the morning before 8am while others must find they way through the mountains, hoping that they would not encounter any Israeli soldiers among the trees.

Nabi Saleh is a very small village of only a few hundreds inhabitants. The demonstrations started in 2009, when settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Halamish took control over the natural spring near the village and prevented Palestinians accessing their lands. Since then, the repression of the army has been horrendous, using various tactics including night raids, arrests (the main leader of the protest, Bassem Tamimi is now in Israel custody), showering the whole village with tear gas and spreading the “skunk” (a noxious chemicals-based liquid which carries an awful smell) directly on houses, systematic violence used against unarmed protestors, including women (see for example the shocking video made by Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem).

In order to be as early as possible in the village, I had to spend the night in Ramallah. From there, some cars were organized for protesters at 8am. In the service (collective taxi), I found myself mostly with young Palestinian women activists, some of them aged no more than 17 year old. It was great to talk to them, they were very open. Most of them have started to join the protests not so long ago and were coming even without their parents knowing. One of them writes a blog, both in English and Arabic. It was truly refreshing to meet them, not that in demonstrations you cannot find any women. But it is quite rare to see some young Palestinian women coming from outside the village join the local protest in solidarity. I asked them how they began being involved. One told me that she began watching the videos of Nabi Saleh and just one day, she decided that she should not be only watching but that she had to go while another one said she started to hear about it through facebook. Another one told me that she began to be involved through the youth movement which emerged at the beginning of this year. In Ramallah they sat up a tent of protest demanding, among other things, a government of reconciliation. She then met the activists from Nabi Saleh who came to support them in their struggle. In response, she and others went to Nabi Saleh, and “once you start coming, you cannot stop”, she told me. I certainly know what she was talking about.

When we reached Nabi Saleh, the main entrance was already closed by a gate, so we had to drive further, got off the service and climbed up the hill. We were lucky, the Israeli soldiers were not at sight so we just had to do a 15 minute-walk. For other activists who arrived a bit later, it would be a one hour and an half tedious walk under a burning sun through the mountains. When we reached the village, we met some Palestinian activists who arrived the day before and they showed us the “popular resistance flotilla” mock ship that was built for the demonstration. It looked great, it was a few meters long and carried the flags of several countries, all on wheels. There were still several hours before the demonstration so I joined along the group of Palestinian girls who went to have breakfast with one of the figures of the popular protest, Nariman Tamimi who works with B'Tselem and documents all the demonstrations. She is the wife of Bassem who had been arrested. We shared a wonderful breakfast. One of the Palestinian blogger made an interview with Nariman. But the relaxed atmosphere was a bit tarnished after a phone call to one of the Palestinian young activist announcing her that one of her friends, also a young Palestinian activist in her 20s was arrested at a checkpoint on her way to Nabi Saleh. Apparently the Israeli soldiers were especially looking for her as they had her family name. She was blindfolded and handcuffed..The others in the taxi were put aside for further investigation. One of the Palestinian young activist seemed especially upset. She told me: 'we are friends but I never met her, we were supposed to meet today for the first time”.

Around 11am, long before the protests, Israeli military trucks passed through the village as provocation. Finally after 1pm the demonstration started, with some Palestinians, Israelis and internationals. The Israeli soldiers were already in place at the end of the main street. The boat was pushed down but just a few meters were made before we were showered by scores of tear gas canisters, some of them shot at the level of the heads. Demonstrators ran for cover on the sides of the street. I walked down to join the photographers who were already in place next to the Israeli soldiers. The village was under siege. The Nabi Saleh flotilla boat was still pushed by a few brave demonstrators, including an old Palestinian woman who managed to push it until just a few meters in front of the soldiers. As she was interviewed, she was attacked by sound bombs and tear gas, and so were the journalists around her. The Israeli soldiers were just shooting at whoever dared to walk in the street, which is just to remind- THEIR STREET. Tear gas canisters were also shot directly at houses, clearly a form of collective punishment according to international law. Tear gas canisters and sound bombs were also thrown among the legs of the journalists.

I went back up to the side of the protesters who were mainly taking cover behind walls or inside houses. At one stage I wanted to go down again to the sides of the soldiers but I was directly aimed at and the tear gas canister passed not far from my head. So I retreat. Finally it was probably better as at this stage most photographers were already gone and one of the only ones who stayed next to the soldiers to monitor them- an Israeli activist working for B'Tselem- was subsequently detained for hours and prevented to film.

I was already exhausted after documenting hours of confrontations but this was far from over.

To make it short for the rest of the day, the demonstrators tried to walk down from another direction, but were again heavily attacked by tear gas canisters. The Israeli soldiers invaded twice the center of village, looking for activists. We hided in an house and the soldiers this time did not bother to go inside. Some of them took position of one the roof. Demonstrations- however dramatic they can be- are not devoid of sometimes funny moments. When the soldiers were walking back to their original position, they received from the top floor of an house an unexploded tear gas canister, which triggered cheering, laughing and applause. Seeing the Israeli soldiers running away from tear gas was quite a delightful scene for the people who receive on their heads dozens of tear gas canisters weeks after weeks. Finally after hours of siege, the Israeli soldiers seemed ready to go. Feeling no shame whatsoever, they still took the time to have a picnic at the entrance of the village. As the jeeps were driving away, Palestinian youth coming from nowhere chased the jeeps and threw stones at them, a way to tell the soldiers that, as occupiers and oppressors, they are not welcomed in their village...one jeep stopped and some more tear gas canisters were again shot at heads level before leaving for good (at least for this day).

It was now time for sunset and rest. I still had a journey of at least three hours back to Bethlehem. As the service drove away, we saw that there were still some clashes at the very end of the village and we went through a cloud of tear gas. We hold our breathe and made it through.

The next day, I could barely walk, and spent most of the day resting. I was therefore so impressed when I heard that there was another surprised demonstration in Nabi Saleh. The demonstrators, together with some Palestinians coming from different villages, including from Bil'in, Israelis and internationals, managed to go down very near to the spring which was taken by the settlers. Respect for those who never give up.

I am glad I went back to Nabi Saleh and met all these amazing activists, and this new generation of young women activists. I bet more of them will join and will be a leading force and voice of the popular struggle.

I want to finish with the strong words of Bassem Tamimi whoaddressed Israel’s Ofer military court during his trial for organizing protests in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh:

“The civil nature of our actions is the light that will overcome the darkness of the Occupation, bringing a dawn of freedom that will warm the cold wrists in chains, sweep despair from the soul and end decades of oppression.”

It took me a few days but I wanted to write something more personal about what happened last week in Bil'in. For me, Bil'in is not just any village but one that had a big impact on my stay here and on my work. It was here that I started to go to demonstrations and learned about the popular resistance. It was also in Bil’in my photo collective group activestills originated and began to develop. What happened last week is just the newest chapter of something that started more than 6 years ago when the village began to demonstrate against the building of the Wall on its lands.

I remember the weekly demonstration in Bil’in in 2007 on the first Friday after the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court which ordered the state to change the route of the Wall “within a reasonable period of time”. As the result of this decision, the villagers of Bil'in were supposed to regain some 275 out of the 600 acres that were annexed by the Wall and the nearby settlement of Modiin Illit.I remembered the joy. People – hand in hand – Israelis, Palestinians and internationals, activists singing and dancing together. In front of the Wall (here, made up ofa system of electrified fences) that had not yet been taken down. But the Palestinians were not fooled by the court’s ruling and expressed their determination to continue the resistance until they gained back all of their lands. They would not back down untilthey saw it with their own eyes....and indeed it took four more years, hundreds of more demonstrations, two further court petitions, hundreds of injured and two dead, for the Israeli state to finally implement the ruling.

So when I heard that the Israeli army would finally take down the Wall,I knew I would not miss the party, which took in fact place in several acts.On 24 June, word got out that the Israeli army had started to dismantle parts of the Wall in Bil'in.We also heard that they were nonetheless preventing the villagers and journalists from accessing the area and documenting what is considered a victory of the growing popular resistance. So a call was sent out inviting us to join the following Friday’s demonstration that would take down the Wall:

“The Bil'in Popular Committee has declared Friday the 24th to be the last day of the old path of the Barrier on village's lands, and the beginning of the struggle against the new path. A mass demonstration will march on the Barrier to dismantle it and access the lands sequestered behind it.”

I joined the protest but I was not too hopeful that the Israeli army would actually let us demolish the Wall. When we started the customary march through the village and to the main gate of the Wall, I was astonished to see that the Palestinians had brought a bulldozer along. Like so many times before, the people of Bil'in had managed once again to surprise me with their audacity. Everyone was anxious about how the Israeli army would react.

As the bulldozer drove straight to the Wall, the Israeli soldiers showered us with scores of tear gas canisters (later I found out that they also shot live ammunition at the bulldozer), some of them fired at the level of the heads and also with the “skunk” (a noxious chemicals-based liquid which carries an awful smell). It was so scary that I almost dropped to the groundfor cover went almost down to the ground looking for protection. Under attack, the bulldozer managed nervetheless to lift the main gate of the first barrier. But several tear gas canisters penetrated the glass walks of the bulldozer's cabin and the driver quickly had to back up until he got out of a dense cloud of tear gas.

More tear gas canisters were shot directly at the protestors. I was running away whenI was hit on my right arm. This was actually the first time I was hit during demonstrations, I had been lucky so far, unlikemost of the other photographers in our collective, who had been either shotor arrested at one point, not to mention the loss or damage of equipments. Every year, Israel is denounced by Reporters Without Borders for its bad records of attacking, harassing, and sometimes killingjournalists. The last photographer who was seriously injured is Mohammad Othman, a free-lance photographer from Gaza who suffered an injury to his chest and damage to his spinal cord in an Israeli attack against a non-violent demonstration held in the Gaza Strip for Nakba Day.

My injury was minor. I just ran to the ambulance to get some ice on it, the ambulance then drove quickly out of the “front line”, as some tear gas went inside the ambulance and was affected the driver who could hardly drive straight as his eyes were teary and he could not see. I got out of the ambulance went back to the action but the demonstration was almost over. The Wall was still standing.

How pathetic and absurd this scene of an army defending a Wall that it had started to dismantle a few days earlier was....I went back home with a big bruise and a question: when will we see the Wall fall, in Bil'in and everywhere else in Palestine?

A few days later, we received an email alert the Israeli army had already finished dismantling the section of the Wall in Bil'in. It was done very fast, again probably to prevent journalists from documenting it. A video by Haitham Khatib, the dedicated cameraman from Bil'in, was published showing Bil'in residents celebrating, driving and honking endlessly on the former “security road” that used to run between the different fences that made up the Wall. Another call was sent out, this time inviting us to come and join the residents on Friday in a celebration. I gladly answered the call, not knowing really what to expect: where we would go if the Wall was not as its usual place? Would the Israeli soldiers attack us nevertheless in the open fields or when we would reach other sections of the Wall? Are we going to try to reach other sections of Wall? I was curious. I was curious.

When we arrived, the people of Bil'in were already in the liberated fields. I walked towards them, through the lands that was cut in half by the ugly Wall until only days ago..now a large part of it finally lay open,with the scar of the “security road” still very visible. People were wandering around, so surprised that it had finally happened. I could also not believe my eyes. No Israeli soldiers were in sight yet.

A prayer was held on the lands that had been inaccessible to the villagers for over six years.. A sense of pride and victory was in the air, but also a profound understanding of the magnitude of the sacrifices made and the ones to come . The son and daughter of Bil'in, Bassem Abu Rahma and his sister Jawaher, both tragically killed during demonstrations, were in everybody's mind.

After the prayer, music blasted out of a truck which the dancing and singing crowd followed . The people of Bil'in certainly know how to party. Jubilantly, we made our way along a road that led up to the next section of the Wall and the settlement of Modiin Illit behind it. Just before the Wall, we joined a small group of villagers and other activists who were already building “Bil'in West”: new houses on the newly liberated lands. There was much more dancing and singing, and defiant and moving speeches, one of them by Ahmad, the brother Bassem and Jawaher. Israeli soldiers and settlers were watching from a distance, behind a Wall that has yet to fall, puzzled by a party that nothing could have spoiled that day. They could only watch as one Palestinian woman walked towards them in a calm but determined manner stride and put the Palestinian flag on the Wall, right under their noses...conveying the message that the people of Bil'in will continue their struggle until all their lands are liberated. The soldiers and settlers looked so small, the people from Bil'in were so glorious.

Perhaps this is only asmall victory, but in the seven years that I have been here, facts on the ground have only developed in one direction: more Walls, more settlements, more demolitions of Palestinian homes, more illegal annexation of Palestinian lands. Therefore, a small victory on the ground carries a huge promise. A promise that pressure works, that things can change, and that people power will not be defeated. This is just the beginning.

People of Bil'in, activists who continue the struggle week after week with all your hearts, with determination and creativity, and unshakable faith into the future and the justice of your cause, I love you.

Friday, July 01, 2011

Palestinians together with Israeli and international activists celebrate last week's moving of a portion of Israel's West Bank Separation Wall, in the village of Bil'in, near Ramallah, Friday, July 1, 2011. For the first time in years, the residents walked on some their lands which were until now on the other side of the Wall. The crowd walked and danced until the newly built wall around Modi'in Illit Israeli settlement. The local residents also on Friday began to construct buildings in the newly accessible land. Israeli soldiers and settlers watched from a distance but no confrontations took place. The dismantling of the section near the village of Bilin comes four years after the Supreme Court ordered it torn down, rejecting the military's argument that the route was necessary to secure the nearby Modiin Illit settlement.Due to the ruling, the villagers got back 275 of the 600 acres Israel took for the wall and the nearby settlement of Modi’in Illit. The struggle continues.